Husband jailed for hiring hitman to kill his wife

A BITTER husband who hired a hitman to kill his estranged wife, was found guilty of her murder. It was the second time he had been convicted of the crime.

A BITTER husband who hired a hitman to kill his estranged wife, was found guilty of her murder today.

It was the second time Jim Lester, 49, had been convicted of the murder of Ingrid Lester, 35, at her Hervey Bay home, in the Wide Bay region, in November 2002.

Lester won an appeal for his first conviction last year and the case went back to a Supreme Court retrial which heard 10 days of evidence.

The jury retired to consider its verdict on Friday afternoon and returned with a guilty verdict shortly before noon today.

While Lester was automatically sentenced to life, there was argument about whether the sentence should be backdated due to the protracted court cases.

After a Supreme Court trial in October 2003, Lester was jailed for nine years for the attempted murder of Ingrid's then new boyfriend Alisdair Morrison, on Christmas Day, 2001.

Barrister Jack Pappas, for Lester, said his client's sentence should be backdated because it was unfair police had waited two years to charge Lester after he had been jailed for the attempted murder.

Prosecutor Dan Boyle said Lester had been on bail for the attack on Morrison when he hired Michael John Kinsella to kill Ingrid Lester.

Mr Boyle said Kinsella went to Ingrid Lester's home and stabbed her 43 times.

Kinsella is serving a life sentence for her murder after pleading guilty in 2004.

Mr Boyle said police waited until August 2005, after Kinsella's sentence, before charging Lester with Ingrid Lester's murder.

He said while the overall impact of the sentence would be severe, it was a consequence of the totality of Lester's offences.

Justice Jim Douglas agreed and sentenced Lester to life in jail starting from today.

"It could mean you serve more than 20 years in jail before being eligible for parole," Justice Douglas said.

The trial heard Jim and Ingrid Lester had been together for 18 years but split up in acrimonious circumstances in Novemer 2001.

Ingrid had taken up with Morrison and they were at a camping site in the Woodgate National Forest, near Bundaberg, when Lester arrived and a fight began.

Morrison was stabbed in the fight and Lester was charged with attempted murder.

While on bail for that offence Lester, who was then living in Melbourne, drove to Queensland and offered Kinsella $10,000 to kill Ingrid.

Kinsella then went to Ingrid's home and murdered her.

The court heard phone records indicated Lester had made a series of calls to Kinsella just before the murder.